I won’t hate your enemies for you
Remember Rocket Racoon at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy 1, looking for loopholes to steal? "But what if I really really want it?
"No."
"I mean, what if its really really cool, and the owner isn't really using it or doesn't deserve it?"
"No."
Some people remind me so much of this.
#####
If I say I start with a belief in the Three Gates, human equality across lines of race and gender, people congratulate me and love that…until they want me to agree they should hate their enemies. In the last month, I've had people imply or pretty directly state I should ignore this…
Women wanting me to agree men are evil (and stupid!)
Conservatives insisting liberals are evil (and stupid!)
Liberals insisting Conservatives are evil (and stupid)
Straights implying this about LGBTQ folks
Pro X cause implying this about anyone who disagrees with them
Poor people insisting the rich are evil (and stupid)
And in one of the greatest predictable ironies, the more privilege they have, the more I NEEDED my belief in things like equality, and anger stemming from fear to keep from dehumanizing THEM, the more right they seem to feel to tell me I must hate their enemies or there is something wrong with me.
So get it through your heads: the Three Gates, the faith in equality, the belief that anger is a mask over fear…NO, YOUR PERSONAL GRIPES DON'T CHANGE MY MIND.
If you are afraid that you cannot act with efficiency and effectiveness without hating, you need to look more deeply. Connect to your survival drive, and you'll do fine. Then open your heart, where the fear and love intertwine…and do what is necessary, NEVER losing sight of your morality. Those who cannot do this are never the ones who can resolve the situation and bring peace, but they sure do get to feel satisfied roiling in their self-righteous hate, reducing their enemies to sub-human.
But boys and girls…if you think I don't know that you'd do the same thing to me if you felt you needed to, if you felt JUSTIFIED, if you really, really wanted to…
You are very wrong.
##
This is one of the great gifts of the Three Gates. You CAN indeed protect yourself and your family and values without hatred. Right ACTION is what resolves issues, not hate or fear. If that hate or fear motivates you to take right action, very good. But don't listen to the demons that say they were REQUIRED. That doesn't pass the First Gate, although the pale demons in your nature, allying themselves with every bit of damage and self-loathing or fear you have ever hidden away in your heart will try to drag you down with that.
What is the way out? Connect with your survival drive. There are so many approaches, some connected to breathing, but the Ancient Child meditation which asks you to visualize the youngest and most helpless part of yourself and then step into that protective role has worked for so many. It is the pure energy of survival that you need. It will be tempting to slide off that path onto that of hatred and fear. Look at what happens to mass actions driven by this, and you'll see it is the very gate of hell.
AFTER you are 100% convinced that you will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to survive, open your heart and commit to channeling this energy through the Three Gates. If you have any doubt you can do that, if you have been so damaged or abused that your anger overwhelms you, then this step becomes even more vital. But once you've made that connection, you have the potential to go BEYOND survival, BEYOND personal joy, to service. You can be a leader. Front-line soldiers can be possessed by rage and hate.
But their officers need to have cooler heads, and the leaders behind those officers had BETTER know how to keep their heads, or it is "war to the knife" and they will lose a LOT more soldiers, as they have pushed their opponents into a "win or die" situation. Inefficient and ineffective. But those who are so damaged they take pleasure from the notion of killing their enemies will argue for their right to hold that position. And those of similar type on the other side will take pleasure in killing THEM.
And they will shout over the people who eventually become the peacemakers, mock them and call them cowards or claim they do not see truth.
Those willing to be warriors of the heart, who FIRST start by connecting with that third rail of human psychology: survival. Then connect to the heart, and see how there is nothing they have ever been angry about that they WANTED to happen to themselves or those they care about. Anger is a mask over fear. Once you see this, all you have to do to understand the motivations of your enemies is look deeply into what they believe threatens them or theirs.
The answer may lead to a regretful conclusion that forceful or even lethal action must be taken. But it NEVER EVER requires hatred or dehumanization. Those might be "useful" but never NECESSARY.
And this leads to the question of "human evil." Other than the purely predatory response, most of what we have is evil ACTION, and yes, I'll say that those too are almost always connected to fear, to separation from a sense of love and peace in the world. Such people are to be pitied, even if we have to take decisive action against them.
If there is pure evil in the world, it is things that hurt children. I will automatically agree with most cases of this. But no, I won't leap to thinking that the person is evil, as if it was genetically or spiritually encoded in them at birth. While there is doubtless some percentage of pure predator by nature, that would be the very LAST conclusion I'd reach, and too damned often it is the first. I find that ignorance of the complexity within our own hearts, a lack of really looking at what we do, and have done. If such actions are evil, and they mean WE are evil, then it becomes practical to hide that away from ourselves, bury it deep in our hearts where we don't have to look at it…and that risks OVER-reacting when we see flaws in others.
We get to attack them, raging at the mote of dust in their eyes, while ignoring the 2x4 in our own.
I think a massive amount of the damage in life stems right from this. And while the results have and continue to be evil, the humans involved are just little bits of protoplasm seeking to avoid pain and find some sort of joy.
That's my position. Agree or disagree: it doesn't change my position at all. But check your privilege: experience says that the very people who seem to feel they have the most right to tell me who to hate…are the people I would hate if I thought like them.
Think about it.
Namaste
Steve
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